Our view: Exactly where are the competing plans?

By the Midland Daily News

Published 10:23 am, Monday, August 15, 2011

It’s one thing for politicians of opposing parties to take potshots at a president’s leadership style, but it’s another thing entirely when members of your own political party, along with some of the most liberal pundits in the land, begin to doubt that leadership.

That is precisely what has been occurring this past week inside the Beltway and beyond. In reaction to a series of public appearances this past week, including one in Michigan, President Barack Obama has been criticized by many for his lack of leadership on the debt-ceiling issue and the critical deficit reduction issue that the “Debt Supercommittee” will grapple with for the next four months.

For instance, Matt Miller of the Washington Post wrote four days ago that “Yet somehow the debt-ceiling fiasco and the downgrade, punctuated by these horrific jobs numbers and stock market gyrations, has made something in me (and, I suspect, millions of others) snap.

“It’s the sound of confidence in Obama’s leadership breaking,” he wrote. “Yes, other forces may be ‘responsible’ for the bad news. But in the end a president has the most power to shape the debate. How could Obama have let the entirely foreseeable debt-ceiling standoff turn into a hostage drama?”

Chris Matthews of MSNBC wonders why Obama has not laid out a specific plan for tackling the big economic issues.

We’ve been wondering the same thing. As the nation faced economic Armageddon last week, we heard of the Boehner plan (from Sen. John Boehner of Ohio) and the Reid plan (from Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada). And we heard of the House Republican plan.

But nothing from the White House except cryptic criticisms of the people who have put out plans for dealing with tough economic choices.

The president’s mantra for months has been the nation needs a balanced approach to dealing with the nation’s debt and deficit. He criticizes other approaches as being “partisan.”

Well, it takes competing ideas to have partisanship. We need to know specifically what the president’s ideas are.